What Hides Under the Bed
by Kuroko no Baka
Summary: John was a pretty normal kid until one day he was shot. I'm going to warn you it will be angsty for a bit because John is likely to have some sort of PTSD. Also, monsters. Lots and lots of them. And eventual BroJohn because oops I OTP'd Later chapters will be M.
1. Chapter 1

I was scrolling through the BroJohn tag and saw someone mentioning Bro as a monster under John's bed. I'm a sucker for things like this, so I decided to finally contribute something to the homestuck fandom and write this. I don't know how long it will be though. Also, I'm taking a few liberties and such with this. Sorrrrryyyyy.

Also, warnings for violence, possible sex, and bad words...

John didn't really remember when he had started checking under his bed for monsters, but he was sure that it had something to do with Rose. She was a girl, obviously, and not much older than him. They had gone to pre-school together and were rather close, though after she had moved away they began to grow apart.

Secretly, however, John was glad to be away from that creepy book of hers. Just looking at it had been enough to send shivers down his spine. And he wasn't even going to mention the countless nightmares he had that involved that book.

Regardless of the origin of this habit, he couldn't help but check every night and every morning for something hiding there. There never was anything more than a few lost dust bunnies and a stray toy, but he couldn't be certain. That uncertainty was probably what led to his obsession with the monster that may or may not be living under his bed.

"You know, I think it's time we talk," John huffed one day. He held his dear salamander, Casey, next to him. His deep azure eyes focused under the bed and he sat down. He was going to ask the monster down there to kindly find another bed to hide under. There had to be other places for it to live.

"I know you've probably lived under this bed just as long as I've slept on it," John started. "But I think it's time to move on. I'm growing up, and I bet you are too, right? Well, I'm just thinking maybe you should go find another bed for yourself. I hear Rose's is pretty comfortable!"

John rambled to the shadows beneath the bed, ranting and raving about how it was time for the creature to move on and find a new home. There was never any movement from the darkness. The shadows stayed in place. John took this as the monster's way of accepting his proposal. He stuck his hand under the bed to shake with the monster.

Something grabbed him.

John let out a pathetic squeak and yanked his hand away, his body shaking violent. Casey, who had been sitting in his lap, began to blow bubbles frantically. She squirmed away and back to her corner, watching from a safe distance.

"I'm sorry," John squeaked out. He opened his eyes and found that there was only a glove holding onto him. It looked a lot like the one he had misplaced last December during his annual sleepover party with Rose.

He gave a nervous chuckle and pushed his glasses up. He turned to face Casey and gave the salamander a thumbs up to show it was okay. She blew a few more odd bubbles at him and he shakily stood to his feet to put her back into her cage. His dad didn't like her loose. And the college kid that was staying with them didn't like her, period.

John shyly peaked outside his room after putting Casey back. As he thought, there was no one there, but the creepy bear rug (or at least John thought it was a bear. It did look very bearish) was staring at him with coal black eyes. He shivered at the intensely blank gaze and quickly slammed the door shut.

"I thought I told you to keep it down? I've got a paper to work on," shouted the college guest. John shook his head and squeaked a timid apology back at him, but he could already hear the heavy boots drawing closer. The knob to his door twisted to the left and it creaked open.

"S-sorry, Jake," he choked out. The college student gave him a dirty look and turned over to face Casey who was happily blowing bubbles in her cage. John nervously chuckled and scurried between the two, protecting his salamander baby before the man could do anything to her.

The college student, Jake, sighed and ran a tanned hand through his hair. His green eyes stared cooly down at John. He was still upset about having to stay with John and his father, even if it was free and there was always good food being served. He just couldn't get used to not being able to wrestle or shoot. The lack of action left him restless, which was probably why he was in such a sour mood.

"It's fine," he grunted. John wiggled in discomfort, and trotted back to his bed.

"I was trying to reason with the monster," he explained. "I thought he had grabbed my arm but it was only a glove."

JoHe giggled nervously and waved the glove as if to make a point. Jake eyed it curiously.

"A monster? Mind telling me more?" Jake asked, inching closer to John. His boots noisily thumped on the wooden floor. The bed creaked as he sat beside John. His eyes never left the boy.

"The one under the bed," John quickly answered. He wasn't used to hearing more than a word or two from Jake. The sudden attention was rather... Unnerving. John wasn't sure if Jake was still angry at him or not, and his father had warned him about their guest.

"Under this bed? Monsters are too big for that," Jake snorted. He reached into the pocket of his green jacket. John caught a flash of silver just as the feeling of cool metal pressed against his temple.

"Monsters don't fit under the bed, or in the closet," Jake said with a bitter smile. His finger was already twitching. His green eyes focused on John's face. He watched the boy's nostrils flare and his chest rapidly rise and fall. He licked his lips and leaned down, his hot breath brushing against John's ear.

"They fit right here," Jake whispered. The gun moved from John's temple to his heart. Jake's fingers twitched at the movement, almost pulling the trigger. The boy under him gasped at the pressure to his chest. His blue eyes filled with tears. Jake let his finger do what it was longing to.

A shot rang out in the otherwise quiet house.

That was how John had wound up here. The white room with tubes. He wasn't sure where this room was. There was no one to ask where it was. He was in the white room full of tubes. And it was only him.

The room was not a fun place to be, John soon found out. It was a very cold place, and the sheets that lay on top of him just barely provided protection from the frigid air. His skinny frame was doomed to shake and shiver, rattling the tubes and the stands, for eternity it seemed. It got worse, however. There was no doors nor windows to the room. There were no lights. John was amazed at how the white floors and walls just stayed... White.

He shut his eyes and rested his head on the pillow. That was about all the movement he could manage. His body refused to work properly for him, legs and arms moved of their own accord, his eyes would occasionally twitch, he would sputter out nonsense as though he were possessed.

Such was the life of John Egbert. The unfortunate comatose boy. The boy whose dad had wasted away as he waited for his son to wake up. The boy who Jake watched bleed out with a sick, satisfied smile, even as the police pulled him away. The boy now trapped inside a dream, with only the darkness underneath the bed still watching over him.


	2. Chapter 2

I really feel inspired for this right now, so who knows how often I'll update. Maybe once every two days. Maybe once a day. In the end, I don't know.

Also you get to see Dave... I kindda want to draw him because what is descriptions?

Also the next part after this will be Rose and a very special monster guest. And no, it isn't Cthulhu.

It had been several years since that fateful day, though John wouldn't know that. The hours, days, time in general, in that white room didn't ever change. John had lost his sense of time long ago, surrendering it with most of his sanity. He had to accept this fate, surrender his hopes of escape.

His once bright blue eyes had dulled with each passing day. He used the word loosely to describe what he thought to be the passing of time, but the white would never tell him that. It just mockingly glowed at him.

Day after day John waited in that white prison cell. He had given up crying for his father. For anyone. The time he had spent waiting on someone to save him was up, and now all he had was time to helplessly lie in that white room, tubes in his arms, the only voice his own.

One day, John woke to a set of steady beeps. His dull eyes scanned the vast white, imitating the motions that would have been searching. He knew he couldn't search. He couldn't do anything.

The beeps continued, a beat slowly forming from them. It had been a long time since John had heard anything close to music. Though, the same could be said for any noise he didn't make.

"Sweet beats, huh?" John said to himself, settling back down under the thin cover. His skin crawled as the cold air rushed under the blanket, and he gave a hiss of discomfort. He scowled at the tubes, which rattled as he moved, making hollow noises that seemed to answer the beeps.

"They are pretty sweet, yeah," snorted someone from behind him. "Can't say this is my taste though. Beeping is annoying after the first five times."

John coughed awkwardly. There was no one else here. There was no voice agreeing with him. There was certainly not a gear-eyed creature staring down at him from its perch atop his bed. And it certainly did not have giant black wings. No, that had to be an illusion.

"Oh yes. Ignore me. Rude fucker," the creature spat. Its feathers rustled in an imaginary breeze and it bent down. John stared at it, sputtering a weak apology as his leg began to twitch. The winged beast let loose a hollow laugh and tilted its head to the side. John thought he heard the whirr of gears as it moved.

...okay so maybe it was a bit more real than an illusion. Its hair was a soft blond, but rather than strands it seemed to have metal feathers that composed its hair. These feathers refused to move at all as it tilted its head; they were firmly stuck to it. Its skin was a soft gold with darker patches spread here and there. Its face had tiny specks that resembled freckles. There were dark lines where joints would have been, that clicked and clinked as the creature moved.

He wasn't even going to start on how strange the enormous metal wings, that stuck out of the white and red coat the creature wore, were, if they could even be considered wings. They were composed entirely of swords and knives, ones that looked suspiciously like ripoffs of ones John had seen in some Japanese cartoon one day.

Still, John kept quiet as his eyes trailed along the creature's arms. Its fingers ended with curved, sharp talons. He gulped and turned back to the eyes. They were eyeballs, like anyone else's, but the pupil was a gear surrounded by a vibrant crimson iris.

"Wow. I heard you were a rude kid, but jesus. I'm so offended. See this? This is me being ironically offended," the creature squawked. The gears in its eyes spun around as it spoke, and John found himself memorized by them.

"Yeah. You better fucking like my eyes. There was a lot of time put into making these beauties," it scoffed. John blinked in confusion and his mouth opened to form a perfect 'O'.

"Bro and I had to dig shit outta your lame Ghostbusters clock for them. I'm Dave, by the way. And I know you're the lame-o, with a capital everything, John Eggbutt," i-er... Dave huffed, crossing his (John was assuming Dave was a male... If robot-birds even had a sex.) arms. The golden talons clicked as they tapped impatiently on the golden metal.

"It's Egbert," John corrected weakly. Dave snorted and began to laugh at this, only instead of a 'haha' it came out as a caw-ha'. John wasn't sure he could get used to this.

"Eggbutt, Egbert. Doesn't really make a difference to me, you know," Dave clicked. John was tempted to make a joke about ticking, but the machine-bird-boy continued. "All I'm here to say is that you need to wake your stupid ass up. I want a comfortable house bed again you fat nasty trash."

John struggled to find a response. Thankfully his hand had thought up one on its own.

SMACK!

Dave reeled away squawking. Feathers flew in every direction and large wings flapped violently- right into the machines beside John. The force sent them tumbling over, chords and all. John let out a scream of pain as the tubes tore themselves from his arm. He looked up at Dave.

He looked up at the face of a panicked doctor.

The once silent room was now filled with the various voices of doctors and nurses scrambling around. He weakly turned to face the mess beside him, seeing the red cloths on his arm and the strange liquids all over the floor. He didn't want to think about how long he might have been hooked up to those.

"John," came the feeble cry beside him. He slowly rolled his head over to see who it was, half expected his father to be there. He was no where to be seen, instead, there was only another doctor. John couldn't form words, he was too shocked, too weak for that, but he was sure there was something sliding down his cheek. Something warm and wet.

"You'll need to stay a little longer and-" the doctor paused to take a breath. "Ms. Lalonde will be here to pick you up next week."

John wondered why Rose's mother would come to get him. Where was his father? Did he give up and leave? John didn't say anything, the tears streaming down his face said it all. He wanted this nightmare to end.

He wanted to wake up.

After what felt like hours, the doctors had slowly begun to flow out of the room and to the other patients. He felt relieved to be alone once more. The onslaught of presences had upset him after being alone for so long in his white room. He let his head roll on the pillow and he shut his eyes. His body felt numb and he had yet to regain proper control of it, but at least he couldn't feel all those things in his arm.

John sighed and tried to make himself comfortable, his limbs refusing to move as he tried to curl up. It was no use to try and do anything, and so John had no choice but to lay there staring up at the ceiling. Watching until the lights flickered out and the white room went dark.

He welcomed the darkness that he had been denied for so long and shut his eyes, falling asleep and never hearing the faint ticking from beneath the hospital bed. Never seeing the pair of gear eyes that spun beneath it, never hearing the iron feathers that clicked as they touched the tile, never feeling the warm breath on his cheek.

John Egbert was fast asleep. The creatures under his bed were not.

Afterward:

If anyone has the time to put up with me, I would seriously love to have a beta. My grammar and spelling is... Decent at best, and I want to make this story perfect for those who take the time to read it.

I love all of you. -hugs and kissus- and feel free to chat me up at my tumblr;

moela-moela

Until next time 〜（ゝ。∂）


	3. Chapter 3

And so it goes on and on. My apologies for any mistakes I make. They sort of... Hit you. Really hard. Like a rock.

Anyways, this chapter is about Rose (´ε｀ )

Rain was softly pittering against the window. Droplets of it collected and gently slid down the glass. The storm had yet to pick up any ferocity, and if the young girl sitting in her room didn't know any better, she would have said the sky was crying.

That day something horrible had happened. Her gut told her so. But she didn't know what it was that was so upsetting. She dreaded to find out. If her intuition was telling her it was that bad- it was probably much much worse.

And so her horrible day began with a call from her mother.

Rose hadn't know what to say when her mother called her downstairs. The woman was hardly ever sober. Or maybe she never was? Rose couldn't remember the last time she had seen her mom able to walk in a straight line without stumbling.

The woman who sat before her now was much different from the clumsy alcohol addict that Rose knew. Her eyes seemed to have sunk into their sockets, and there was a distinct red tint to them. Her lips were pressed tightly together, as though she was trying to avoid saying something.

"Rose. About your friend John," she said weakly. "He's dead."

The was a moment of silence; no one breathed. Rose didn't know how to handle the news. She had expected something wrong- she was having the same feeling she did when Jaspers died- but she was never expecting something like this.

Her mother tried to reason with her, but-

Rose stopped listening after that. She just stood up and walked away. Her mother watched silently and sat back on the couch, her head in her hands. Rose never looked back.

"There has to be something in here," she hissed as she tore her tome from its place near her computer. Its leather cover felt foreign to her touch and she was about to open it when there was a loud thud behind her.

"I'd advise you not to use that. Unless you want your friend to become the walking dead," came a voice from behind her. Rose whirled around to face them, her eyes widening as she fell upon their form. Their eyes were hidden behind a pair of shades, and their face appeared to be normal.

However, they looked like someone who had just walked out of a stereotypical Japanese animation. If she had not been in such a panic, Rose would have probably laughed, but now was not the time for that.

"Then what am I supposed to do," she spat. She didn't mean to let her voice break, but it did anyway. Her eyes stung. Was she-? Could she be-?

A tear slid down her cheek, landing with a small plop on her skirt.

"Well, first, crying isn't going to solve anything. Neither is that book," they said gently. As they drew closer, Rose was able to distinguish their bishi features as male. He certainly was... Pretty. Even if his sideburns could have made Elvis cry in jealousy.

"And what might you propose then?" Rose asked, reaching up to wipe the tears from her eyes.

"I've got a friend whose already on it. He's searching through every timeline, to find one where John made it. I can't promise that John will be the same, the experience was... Likely traumatizing. But he won't be dead, and he won't be something out of the Pet Sematary," he answered with a smile.

"A friend?"

"Yeah. His name is Dave. I had kick his ass to get him to do it, but he'll get it done. He always does," he responded. There was a fondness in his voice.

"What about your name?"

"When did this become twenty questions?" he sighed. "I guess you can call me Bro though. Bro Strider."

"And why are you helping?"

"Twenty questions are up," he snorted.

Rose shot him a look, but he was gone. She looked back to her tome, laying open on the ground before her; she shut it. She was going to trust what Bro had said. He didn't seem like he had any reason to lie about it.

"John..." she sighed. Another tear drop slid down, leaving a small stain beside the one before it.

The rain outside continued, the noise drowning out the hushed sobs of the girl within the house.


End file.
